Christian Leysen (born 1954 in Wilrijk) is a Belgian businessman. He obtained a Commercial engineer - Masters degree in Law at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1976. There he was president of the fraternity "$olvay" in 1974-1975 [1]. Christian Leysen developed several Belgian ventures to large international companies. He is a son of André Leysen, and his brother Thomas Leysen is CEO of Umicore. Christian Leysen is married to Brigitte Guillaume and together they have four children: Caroline, Nathalie, Patrick and Denis.
Leysen started his career in 1976 with Arthur Andersen & Co, the international audit and consulting company. In 1981 he joined GB Inno BM, the largest Belgian retail group, where he was in charge of the Maxi division’s logistics and organisation.
In 1984, he founded Xylos, an information technology service provider. In 1989 he took over daily management of Ahlers, an Antwerp-based shipping company and made it a logistical and maritime service provider. In 1994, he brought Ahlers back into private ownership through a buy-out operation of Stinnes AG (Mülheim) and became Chairman of the Board.
He is President of the AXE-group (comprising Ahlers, Xylos and AXE Investments). Beside its activities in transportation and information technology, the AXE-group is also active as an investor via AXE Investments.
Leysen is a member of the board of KBC Banking & Insurance Group, Agfa-Gevaert and the Belgian Post Group.
He is Chairman of the University of Antwerp Management School (UAMS). He is a founding member and was the first chairman of ADM (a cluster of about 100 IT related companies) and of the Belgian Enterprise Network for Social Cohesion (actually Business & Society).